Red Letter Press Books

03/08/2024

Much thanks and appreciation to Argentine publisher Zindo & Gafuri Ediciones for their beautiful translation and presentation of Karen Brodine's "Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking." Our copies arrived today! Can't wait to be able to read the new introduction by Argentine feminist poet Gabriela Borrelli Azara.

02/28/2024

We're very excited about the new Argentine edition of Karen Brodine's important feminist poetry collection "Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking." Karen was a leader in Radical Women and the Freedom Socialist Party and a groundbreaking force for working-class le***an and feminist poetry.

In the prologue to this edition, Gabriela Borrelli Azara, an Argentine feminist poet and abortion rights activist, writes that the poetry "highlights the philosophical body-mind-machine relationship that Brodine establishes and the class dimension that runs through the entire book: 'How does she do it? With humor, with tenderness, demonstrating that work can be a space of joy and abuse at the same time. And above all, a space for creativity that the system tries to overshadow in each of us. ...There is image, there is sound, there is a constant, recurring rhythm that soothes the reader and allows the poem to open the eye of reflection.'”

02/27/2024

Very exciting news! Karen Brodine's book of poetry, "Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking" has been translated into Spanish and published in Argentina and Spain!

Argentine publisher Zindo & Gafuri initiated the project and the dual translations into Argentine and Iberian varieties of Spanish.

Argentine bookstore
https://eternacadencia.com.ar/p/mujer-frente-a-la-maquina-pensando/144717/155103

Spanish publisher Kriller71 Ediciones
https://kriller71ediciones.com/coleccion-poesia/mujer-frente-a-la-maquina-pensando/

Order the English version at http://www.redletterpress.org/womansitting.shtml

01/10/2024

WHY INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY WITH UKRAINE MATTERS by Andrea Bauer. Our latest Red Banner Reader is ready to order at www.RedLetterPress.org!

11/30/2023

Red Letter Press signed the Publishers for Palestine letter. Check out our small pamphlet "Shattered Hopes in Palestine" by Raya Fidel. Addresses the impossibility of a two-state solution. www.redletterpress.org

Join , , , Week: November 29 – December 5, 2023 https://publishersforpalestine.org/2023/11/20/join-readpalestine-week-november-29-december-5-2023/

06/26/2023

It's a great experience to be able to hear Karen Brodine speak this section of her poem "Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking," while reading along with the text. Thanks to Poetry On-Line for this opportunity to make more people aware of Karen's work! Visit our webpage to order the book. (www.redletterpress.org) *Copy and paste this link so that the FB referral doesn't mess up your access.*
https://www.poetry.onl/read/karen-br

Karen Brodine was a poet, typesetter, & activist who broke ground for working-class feminist & le***an poetry in the 1970s and '80s. Her four books: Slow Juggling, Work Week, Illegal Assembly and Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking, explore class, sexuality, language, & labor struggle

03/09/2023

Meet Clara Fraser, the author of REVOLUTION, SHE WROTE! She not only wrote, but lived and breathed revolution!

Fiery words from the incomparable Clara Fraser, founding mother of socialist feminism and Radical Women, in the centennial year of her birth.

03/09/2023

Enjoy this presentation in San Francisco by Emily Woo Yamasaki, author of "A Revolutionary Call for Black Reparations."

2023's Black History Month event is the debut of 2 new pamphlets, 'Which Way Forward for the Black Lives Matter Movement?' by Christina Lopez and 'A Revoluti...

02/14/2023

Enjoy this discussion in Seattle of the two new Red Letter Press booklets on the Black movement by one of the authors, Christina López.

López was inspired to activism as a Chicana growing up poor in segregated Phoenix and was involved in the two waves of Black Lives Matter.

The chair for the event was Sarah Scott, a Black sailor, marine electrician and reproductive justice activist.

02/07/2023

Special guest Christina Lopez shares on Clean Greens Living about “Words into Action” a Black History event happening February 11thas well as her pamphlets, “A Revolutionary Call for Black Reparations" and “Which way forward for Black Lives Matter movement?” https://fb.watch/ixj-lYJtoC/ Starts at about 3:00

Clean Greens is live Tuesdays at 12:30 pm PT on Rainier Avenue Radio hosted by Queen Bri of Clean Greens Farm and Market with interviews and tips on eating and living healthy.
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https://rainieravenueradio.world
Donate on Venmo or https://rainieravenueradio.world/donate
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02/03/2023

Poet and activist Nellie Wong says:

"This booklet gives the reader a big picture, spelling out the foundations of racism in the United States. It examines historical precedents for reparations and critiques the current debate. I appreciate the inclusion of diverse visions of organizations and individuals regarding U.S. restitution."

Written by Emily Woo Yamasaki, coordinator of the National Comrades of Color Caucus of Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women. Order for $5.50 at http://www.redletterpress.org/redreaders.html

02/02/2023

Says NYC writer Lee Gill, an activist for police accountability:

"It’s hard to put into words how effortlessly [author Christina López] manages to answer the main problems of activist movements today. With less than thirty pages of material, the author manages to set fire to the dangerous preconceived notions that sabotage the class struggle for freedom."

Order for $5.50 at http://www.redletterpress.org/redreaders.html

02/01/2023

Hot off the press! Two important writings to guide activism for Black liberation. Only $5.50 each. Order at www.RedLetterPress.org.

02/18/2022

Read a red book on Monday, Feb 21!
https://redbooksday.org/

Join us this year for Red Books Day on February 21, 2022, marking the 174th anniversary of the publishing of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels. It is an international celebration and commemoration of the Communist Manifesto and the liberatory impact it has had on people’s m...

03/25/2021

Our feminist press is highlighted for Women's History Month on the blog for our printer Gorham Printing! With special attention to "High Voltage Women" and "Permanent Revolution"! As they say, "Buy the book!"

https://gorhamprinting.wordpress.com/

Book Printing and Design for Independent Publishers

03/24/2021

Enjoy this recent 3CR radio show in honor of International Working Women's Day that features the presentations at the Melbourne "High Voltage Women" book launch from 2019. https://www.3cr.org.au/sticktogether/episode-202103030830/high-voltage-women

Seattle City Light hired 10 women for the first time in the 1970's and fired them because of rampant sexism. It ended in a 7 ½ year legal battle for reinstatement of the women workers. We go to the Melbourne launch of Ellie Belew's book High Voltage Women, published by Red Letter Press, which tells...

02/06/2021

Enjoy this insightful review of "High Voltage Women" from the New York Labor History Association!

"To do the job they love — to open doors for unforeseen generations of women workers — to short-circuit male domination and power — Belew’s unfolding of a dramatic historical moment that transformed the meaning of being human.... I know that I will always keep a copy in my library," says the reviewer, Francine Moccio, author of "Live Wire: Women and Brotherhood in the Electrical Industry."

In High Voltage Women: Breaking Barriers at Seattle City Light, the author, Ellie Belew has achieved a well-documented work of historical non-fiction about how ten heroic journeywomen lineworkers at Seattle’s public utility—City Light—broke barriers in a highly dangerous skilled occupation. Be...

11/12/2020

ONE ARTIST | ONE WORK: Aideen Doran, Women Sitting at the Machine, Thinking - LUX Scotland

Hear an artist discuss her audio work created from Karen Brodine's feminist working-class poetry. Free online on Thursday, November 25. "Aideen Doran will discuss her recent audio work 'Women Sitting at the Machine, Thinking"... a polyphonic chorus of voices reading extracts from the poetry collection by the Marxist-feminist writer Karen Brodine." It's Scotland (GMT) time 7:30pm; which is 11:30am PST in the U.S.; and 6:30am Friday in Melbourne, Australia.

https://luxscotland.org.uk/event/one-artist-one-work-aideen-doran-women-sitting-at-the-machine-thinking/

For the next event in the ONE ARTIST | ONE WORK series Aideen Doran will

10/22/2020

Demand that PayPal cease all fundraisers to white supremacist causes!

Paypal is a useful tool for small publishers and community organizations. But we cannot allow it to profit from fundraising for far-right murders and white supremacists. Please sign this petition! https://act.colorofchange.org/sign/paypal_bloodmoney/

Demand that PayPal cease all fundraisers to white supremacist causes!

08/21/2020

Alison Thorne recommends "Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking" and the sound work of Aideen Doran, at online exhibit at the Talbott Rice Gallery, among her lockdown resources in the Freedom Socialist Organiser out of Melbourne Australia!

08/20/2020

PERMANENT REVOLUTION -- on lit tables everywhere! Get it from www.RedLetterPress.org!

08/07/2020

Karen Brodine's poetry continues to reach new audiences! The Talbot Rice Gallery in the UK is just opening a new online exhibit -- a sound work by Aideen Doran that is a rendition in multiple voices of the poem series "Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking." Listen here and enjoy the very thoughtful appreciation of Brodine as a workingclass feminist poet by James Clegg.

Aideen Doran / Women Sitting at the Machine, Thinking
7 Aug – 2 Oct 2020

We’re delighted to launch a new version of Aideen Doran’s sound work, 'Women Sitting at the Machine, Thinking', with a new essay. As the pandemic amplifies the vulnerability of those in precarious and impoverished situations, this exploration of changing class-based, racial and gendered relationships in the workplace – a tribute to the critical work of poet Karen Brodine – could not be timelier.

Listen and read here:
https://www.trg.ed.ac.uk/event/aideen-doran-women-sitting-machine-thinking

Mixing and additional editing by Joe Howe.

Red Letter Press Books

08/04/2020

Excited to announce that a new chapbook with Karen Brodine's whole poem series "Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking," plus the two-part poem "Censorship" has just been published by Unbidden Tongues, which is associated with Publication Studio Rotterdam! Thank you to series editor Isabelle Sully for her lovely and perceptive introduction. The chapbook can be ordered here: https://www.publicationstudio.biz/books/karen-brodine-woman-sitting-at-the-machine-thinking-and-censorship/

07/20/2020

Another Monday, another case of VIVA LA RAZA: A HISTORY OF CHICANO IDENTITY & RESISTANCE goes out the door!

04/26/2020

Poems to Lean On

Happy to announce that Karen Brodine's poem of the AIDS crisis, "Sickness Slept In Us," was posted on the Washington poet laureate's blog, "Poems to Lean On." Thank you, Claudia Castro Luna. Scroll down past the poem by Pablo Neruda (not bad company!) to find it. https://wapoetlaureate.org/poetry-to-lean-on/

This is a space to share poems that offer fortitude, hope, resilience, humor. Share a poem, or a link to one, and in two to three lines convey how it inspires, or moves you. Submit to poet@humani…

03/13/2020

Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking: feminist poetry by Karen Brodine

Karen Brodine's poem of the AIDS crisis, "Sickness Slept in Us," from NO ONE IMMUNE, resonates strongly today.

"Sickness Slept in Us"

It was a time when sickness slept in us waiting
It was a time when birds dove through slick oil
and came up without feathers
a time when no one was immune

Are you now
or have you ever been
a member of those
who face the days with no natural defense?
who face a slow and certain death?
diagnosed, the new lepers
under wrath of god.

Can they lock us all up?

(1985)

https://www.redletterpress.org/womansitting.html

Award-winning feminist poetry on work, activism, language, sexual identity, family, and the author's fight against breast cancer.

01/16/2020

Our newest Red Banner Reader -- "Ecosocialism: The Solution for Survival on Planet Earth." https://www.redletterpress.org/redreaders.html

11/05/2019

Congratulations to all the awardees at the Washington Women In Trades annual event. And especially to former Electrical Trades Trainee and 30-year City Light veteran Megan Cornish, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award!

10/09/2019

High Voltage Woman Megan Cornish was honored by Washington Women in Trades for her Lifetime Achievement. Congratulations on this very well-deserved honor!

It's with great pleasure that we announce that one of the SCL High Voltage Women: Megan Cornish is being awarded a "Lifetime Achievement Award" as part of the 13th Annual Washington Women in Trades' "Dream Big Dinner and Trades Women Awards" Nov 2, 2019